If the (now pretty loud) whispering I’ve been hearing over the past six weeks is any indication, we’re about to find out. The ESO (European Southern Observatory) has a press conference scheduled for next Monday regarding an “unprecedented discovery” of a never-before-observed astronomical phenomenon. Maybe a bit hyperbolic but cool stuff nonetheless.

What makes this particularly interesting is that it likely involves not just a gravitational wave detection by LIGO (and also Virgo, LIGO’s new European counterpart!) but also an accompanying photon detection by multiple telescopes. Hubble for one is known to have interrupted its schedule for an observation in the same region where just shortly beforehand LIGO and Virgo reportedly pinpointed a gravitational wave event. (With Virgo now online we can triangulate GW locations with really good accuracy.)

The other cool part of course is that LIGO, beefed up since its initial GW detections, can now “see” merging neutron stars. This merger all but surely involves the remnants of a binary star pair, both of which went supernova some time ago. Interesting data about neutron stars oughta come out of this. For one thing: confirmation that they actually exist.

For the astrophysics geeks amongst us: the LIGO Virgo YouTube channel will be livestreaming this coming Monday’s ESO press conference, starting at 10am EDT (in the USA). There’s a link to the livestream at LIGO Virgo’s YT home page.

Tommy, thanks for posting the Flickr link. Paranal must’ve been quite something! Having visited your website, I’m guessing you were filming there. As a lover of deserts in general, the Atacama is a place I’d be thrilled to spend time in. Just gotta convince someone I know to get a job there & then invite me.

Merging neutron stars it is! Detected on August 17, not only by LIGO and (*weakly) Virgo in the form of gravitational waves but also by the Fermi Gamma Ray telescope, and then looked at by a whole bunch of scopes across the electromagnetic (that is, light) spectrum. This was a strong GW signal, ringing the LIGO detectors for more than 90 seconds. The optical signals lasted for up to weeks depending on the wavelengths involved. The merged stars are ~130 million light years away.

The U.S. National Science Foundation held a press event this morning in Washington to formally announce these findings. I was alerted to it by a cousin, who is a retired physicist, and watched it live. It's long, but I thought the presenters did a great job of explaining their findings to non-scientists like me. You can watch the replay here.

The U.S. National Science Foundation held a press event this morning in Washington to formally announce these findings. I was alerted to it by a cousin, who is a retired physicist, and watched it live. It's long, but I thought the presenters did a great job of explaining their findings to non-scientists like me. You can watch the replay here.

Yep, that’s the one I watched. Lotsa info, presented succinctly.

A former LIGO-er, part of the small crew on duty when LIGO first detected gravitational waves a couple years ago, made a comic about this latest detection.

The guy in the comic shsshing with his finger and then putting hand over face after the Hubble folks kinda spilled the beans is David Shoemaker, LIGO’s current spokesperson. The guy in the blue sweater is Rai Weiss, co-winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for conceiving of and designing LIGO.